Heretofore, bearings infiltrated with an antigalling material were made from a base of an alloy powder compressed into the shape of the desired bearing element thereby providing a porous matrix. The porous matrix was sintered and the antigalling material infiltrated into the porous structure. Usually the infiltrated antigalling material was a copper or copper zinc alloy and in at least one such bearing structure the infiltrated material was silver. To overcome the considerable increase in the amount of friction to a rotating or sliding part when using infiltrated bearing structures, a reinfiltration of the bearing structure with antimony is employed to provide a harder surface. Other attempts to provide improved infiltrated bearing structures utilized Tungsten carbide particles in a high, temperature resistant, metal matrix.
In addition to the infiltration of a matrix with an antigalling material into a bearing structure, there have also been previous attempts to construct bearings juxtapositioned surfaces of wear resistant and antigalling materials. Grooves in the surface of the bearing structure were filled with a soft metal having antigalling characteristics. There is, however, the problem of smearing of the antigalling material over a bearing surface when loads are impressed upon the bearing structure. This negated the beneficial effects of the antigalling material and produced an unsatisfactory bearing structure.